Publication: No Broken Link: The Vulnerability of Telecommunication Infrastructure to Natural Hazards
Date
2019-06
ISSN
Published
2019-06
Author(s)
Sandhu, Himmat Singh
Raja, Siddhartha
Abstract
The global economy is increasingly
digital. The internet and other information and
communicationtechnologies (ICTs) are changing the way
individuals, businesses and governments operate.
Theirresilience to natural disasters, and their ability to
recover in the aftermath, is thus critical to the resilience
of the economy. This chapter discusses the impact of climate
events on various types of digital infrastructure. It
highlights key considerations for governments and digital
infrastructure owners to make their infrastructure more
resilient, while maintaining affordability of services. We
find that digital infrastructure is vulnerable to various
climate risks, but that technology choices and network
design can improve redundancy and resilience of networks, by
design. Certain infrastructures warrant greater ex ante
investment in their resilience considering their criticality
in the broadband value chain (submarine cables or landing
stations) while others could follow repair and recovery
options (mobile network antennas, poles, and towers). We
conclude with recommendations for the public and private
sectors, noting that governments and sectorregulators can
improve network resilience, and increase coordination given
the distributedownership and governance models in the industry.
Citation
“Sandhu, Himmat Singh; Raja, Siddhartha. 2019. No Broken Link: The Vulnerability of Telecommunication Infrastructure to Natural Hazards. Background paper for Lifelines;. © World Bank, Washington, DC. http://hdl.handle.net/10986/31912 License: CC BY 3.0 IGO.”